Mark milestones, not resolutions: How gardening teaches care and attention

When the year begins, we make promises we can’t keep. We’ll exercise daily. Eat healthy. Read more books. And somewhere in that ambitious list, someone adds a line, “I’ll start a garden this year.” By March, the treadmill becomes a cloth stand, the salad turns to samosa, and those hopeful seedlings turn into crispy brown sticks.

I know this pattern well because I’ve experienced it firsthand. It starts as enthusiasm and ends as neglect. And I’ve learnt that resolutions are contracts we make with our future self, who may or may not show up. So I began finding other ways to return to the garden.

A few years ago, I started buying plants to mark important occasions in my life. Before I developed this habit, I would buy plants because they appealed to me, without considering whether I had the right conditions for them.

A walk into the nursery, and anything that caught my eye would go into the cart. I would bring them home and tuck them into one optimistic corner of my garden.

I’d water them diligently for the first week and then forget about them. I would notice that corner again only when the leaves turned yellow or when a plant died. I would blame myself for being too busy, for not caring beyond the initial excitement. Guilt would take over for a few hours, followed by the familiar vow of no more impulsive buying. But that resolve would last only until the next visit to the nursery. This cycle repeated itself for years. There was a particular day when I went to the local nursery to buy pots and soil. I was still relishing the relief of finishing a three-month art project. I noticed a Hoya, and something about it caught my attention. It blooms from the same node year after year.

A stubborn return to the exact point where it once began. It felt like my project effort, revisiting the same place until something finally opened. I bought it and named it Milestone. And just like that, I liked the idea of associating plants with events in my life. The list grew after that. A Damascus rose for my mother’s 75th birthday. A frangipani for childhood. A citron for my first book.

Slowly, every new plant in the garden had a memory associated with it. I read about plants before buying them. And more importantly, I promised myself that I would care for them after the novelty wore off.

I asked practical questions before bringing anything home. Would it live in sun, shade, or bright half-light? Would it need water daily, twice a week, or only when the soil was truly dry? I made sure they fit into the garden. The sentiment quietly turned into responsibility, and I was visiting my plants often. It’s not that I care for these plants more; it is just that I simply notice them. Attention is the real new beginning.

My father never made gardening resolutions. He did not need a new year to begin with. He walked into the garden every morning because that’s where the vegetables and flowers were. He noticed what was drooping, what was thriving, what had quietly changed, and responded to it. He didn’t track a watering schedule in an app. There was no guilt and no grand promises to keep; only the small care the day required. So, instead of resolutions, mark an occasion. Something real. A birthday coming up. A goal you finally achieved. Even a rough week you got through. Buy a plant for it. Put it where you’ll see it daily. It can be near the coffee maker, by the window, or on your desk between the clutter. When you look at it, you’ll remember why it’s there.

And when you remember, you’ll notice the new leaf uncurling, the first bud, and the soil drying faster on warmer days. You’ll notice the tiny pushes of new growth and the way the plant slowly fills the space. And if the plant dies? Well, that’s gardening too. You’ll learn something new. You’ll try again. Not because you resolved to, but because somewhere between the watering and wilting, you learned how to care. Until next time, happy gardening.

Motley Garden is your monthly kaleidoscopic view into a sustainable garden ecosystem. The author believes gardens are shared spaces where plants and creatures thrive together. She can be reached at [e-mail] or on social media at @allthingsinmygarden.